Asia

On Friday, October 14, Comrade Manzoor Ahmed, Member of Parliament and PTUDC president, held a press conference at the Lahore Press Club announcing the launching of the PTUDC solidarity caravan, called “The Revolutionary Solidarity Caravan”. Manzoor also announced his programme of demands for the aftermath of the earthquake and criticised the Musharraf government's handling of the disaster.

The initial shock of the earthquake in Pakistan and Azad Kashmir is beginning to turn into anger as millions of people are left without shelter in the cold and rain. The PTUDC’s international solidarity campaign has swung into action raising well over £1000 over the last few days. The response to our appeal has been truly amazing, but we need to raise more money to pay for the supplies, convoys, and medicines that we will be sending to the worst affected areas of Kashmir and Pakistan.

Following on from the letter we published a few weeks ago, another reader in China has added his thoughts to the discussion. He highlights particularly the growing disparity between different social layers in Chinese society, a result of the development of capitalism, which is destroying all the gains of the past.

The introduction of the “market economy”, i.e. capitalism, in China is provoking massive social contradictions: extreme poverty at one end, extreme wealth at the other. But a gigantic proletariat is also being created, the “gravediggers” of capitalism, as Marx used to say.

We received this flyer from the PTUDC in the United States, which is being distributed to trade unions and workers in the US in order to raise money for the PTUDC's aid campaign. You can download the flyer from the PTUDC website.

We were sent this contribution from Munno Bhai, a very well known left wing journalist and TV director in Pakistan.  The article is on the economic growth rates in Venezuela. It is one of his daily columns published on September 23 in the daily Urdu newspaper, the Jang with a readership of nearly 20 million people.

Upwards of 40,000 people are thought to have died and hundreds of thousands injured in Pakistan, northern India, and Kashmir as a result of the earthquake that hit the region Saturday morning. The devastation caused by the quake has exposed the rottenness of the Musharraf regime and has left millions stranded with no shelter, food or water.

“I Ask the Night” is a translation of selected poems by Javed Shaheen, the famous Pakistani poet, published by Struggle Publications in Lahore. Javed Shaheen witnessed the terrible bloodshed at the time of the partition of India and that marked him for the rest of his life. Ever since then he has sided with the downtrodden and oppressed.

“I Ask the Night” is a translation of selected poems by Javed Shaheen, the famous Pakistani poet, published by Struggle Publications in Lahore. Javed Shaheen witnessed the terrible bloodshed at the time of the partition of India and that marked him for the rest of his life. Ever since then he has sided with the downtrodden and oppressed.

We have just received this urgent appeal from the comrades in Pakistan. The terrible earthquake that has devastated the north of Pakistan and India has had its worst effects in Kashmir. As if the inhabitants of this oppressed land had not suffered enough, nature has now inflicted an appalling calamity that falls heaviest on the poorest sections of society. We are calling on our readers to give as generously as possible to the special appeal that we have launched today.

We have just received this urgent appeal from the comrades in Pakistan. The terrible earthquake that has devastated the north of Pakistan and India has had its worst effects in Kashmir. As if the inhabitants of this oppressed land had not suffered enough, nature has now inflicted an appalling calamity that falls heaviest on the poorest sections of society. We are calling on our readers to give as generously as possible to the special appeal that we have launched today.

The South Asian subcontinent is the least gender sensitive region in the world. It is the only region in the world where men outnumber women. The sex ratio is 105.7 men to every 100 women. In Pakistan, women are not only subjected to financial discrimination, but they are also victims of inhuman customs and laws such as Karo Kari, Hadood ordinance, Qasas and marriage to the Quran and half witnesses according to the state law (whereby in court a female witness is only worth half a male witness).

We are publishing a letter we recently received from a reader in China, who considers himself a Marxist. Although we would not necessarily agree with every point he makes, the letter does give a very interesting insight into what is happening in Chinese society.